Dog Hero in Ghana Rescues Newborn Baby

Felix Omondi, an 11-year-old student with his dog, now named Mkombozi (Saviour), in a compound on the outskirts of Nairobi.

This week, a farm dog in the west African country of Ghana is being praised as a hero hound after saving the life of an abandoned two-week-old baby. Madam Rosemary Azure, a regional director of health in Ghana, told the Ghana News Agency that the dog apparently found the baby under a bridge in the northern part of the country near the regional capital of Bolgatana. Rather than abandon, or hurt the vulnerable tot, the dog curled up next to him for the night, refusing to leave his side.

A search party found the duo the next morning. The dog’s owner had become worried that the pooch hadn’t returned home, and had gotten a group together to look for the pup through the nearby woods and fields. They spotted the dog under the bridge, and then saw that a baby was nuzzling into its fur.

There have been other doggy heroes in Africa. Perhaps most famous is the Kenyan stray now known as Mkombozi, who was foraging for food in 2005 when she found an abandoned infant girl. Mkombozi (which means “liberator” in Swahili) carried the baby back to her own litter of puppies – across busy roads, through a barbed wire fence and into one of the impoverished neighborhoods of Nairobi. The dog became a national hero after residents heard the baby’s cries and found Mkombozi protecting her.